The Importance of a Beautiful Command Line

Around 18 months ago, I decided I’d had enough of Windows and started to look for a change of scenery. After trying several Linux Distributions, I decided to go with Ubuntu

I noticed that the text in the terminal was not particularly readable, but the more I used it the more I got used to it. At the time, I did not realise how customisable the look and feel was. I was unaware of the myriad of terminal emulators, alternative shells and plugins that were available.

I recently started a new job where the senior developer recommended I install the following tools:

Z Shell (ZSH)

ZSH is an alternative login shell which can be installed on your Unix like computer. ZSH has great features like autocomplete and even lets you know which git branch you’re on

Install ZSH with:

sudo apt install zsh

You can find out your current login shell with

echo $SHELL
#/bin/bash

Check to see whether the ZSH variable has been set correctly

which zsh
#/usr/local/bin/zsh

You now need to change your default shell for you and it’s a good idea to do it for root too